Hannibal knew that Decker was going to be thrown out of the frying pan and directly into the fire with this one, and he also knew that each one of them had their own share of involvement in this disaster that they had to answer to. But he was a Colonel first, he was the leader to his team and he wouldn't see them captured for anything; and he knew that General Bullen, or whoever outranked Decker on this job, would not overlook the fact that the A-Team just happened to be in the middle of this tragedy and he would have them brought in in chains just for the frosting on the cake. So, feeling a bit of a heel for leaving Decker and Crane in the lurch, Hannibal got the others rounded up and out of the cemetery before the reinforcements came in, and he knew that they would be coming in in droves, and he was correct.

They had gotten far enough out of sight but stayed close enough that they could see just who was brought in to clean up the mess. Aside from two fire trucks and a pack of firemen fighting to get the flames extinguished before the wind made the conflagration spread like an epidemic, they could see about a dozen cars belonging to members of the military and a couple dozen men in uniforms overseeing the entire scene of the slaughter. Hannibal could tell that Decker was getting his ears pinned back for his part in what was happening, but he knew that it was a situation Decker had been in before, and could get himself out of again. It was a bit odd that there was no difference felt despite the fact that this time there were four dead bodies to accompany the fine mess that somebody had made, but, unfortunately such was the life of a military man. It was a hard fact to face, but those four people in the car were dead almost as quickly as the explosion had occurred, there wasn't anything anybody could do to help them. And in regards to the remaining members of the drug running ring, they had been too shocked by the explosion and the deaths of their partners to even try running off, so that side of the situation was well in hand to be dealt with without their additional presence at the scene.

Hannibal drove them out of the area and it was a quiet ride back to civilization, nobody said what they were thinking, and just as well because tension was already running high; one wrong word from somebody might just prove enough to get World War 3 started between the passengers. B.A. sat up front with Hannibal and Face, Murdock and Jean were piled into the back. Face stared out the window, Murdock looked down at his shoes and Jean was half turned to the other window but wasn't really looking at anything.

Finally, after they'd been driving for about an hour, Face leaned forward and asked Hannibal, "Where're we going?"

The others looked at him as if they too were anticipating the answer. Hannibal kept his eyes on the road ahead and answered simply, "The last place Decker would look for us."

Based on Hannibal's perspective, that turned out to be Decker's own home. Once again they bypassed the security system, went in the front door and made themselves at home. Face dropped on the couch in the living room and was ready to fold himself up like a cockroach and expire, Hannibal crashed on the cushion next to him and wore a similar expression on his face; B.A. sat down in a chair beside the couch, holding himself together slightly better than the other men, and Murdock parked himself on the couch's arm beside Face. Jean was the last one in the room, and nobody looked at her right away but they did notice that while the rest of them were letting out noisy exhalations and grunts and sighs, there wasn't a single sound coming out of the honorary corporal. Face looked over to her and his eyes bugged out when he saw why, and the others quickly followed suit.

Jean stood in the doorway to the living room, her face flushed and turning purple due to the simple fact that she was not breathing. She hadn't sucked air in to hold onto like a swimmer going under water, she had simply willed herself to stop taking in any air, or letting any out. That was why she hadn't made any noise and it made the four men wonder just how long she had been like this. Face and Murdock were the first ones off the couch and in two steps had closed the gap between she and them; Murdock grabbed her by the hands and was trying to get her to talk, but Face went behind her, drew his hand back, and hit Jean between her shoulder blades as hard as he could. His actions had the desired result.

Jean threw her head back and yelled at the top of her lungs, and once the oxygen had worked its way back into her she collapsed in Murdock's arms sobbing and gasping heavily as the breath went in and out of her at a rapid pace; just like a newborn child brought into the world, met immediately with pain to ensure that the breath of life entered its body.

"Murdock," Hannibal said softly, not getting too close to either of them because he didn't want to take a chance of Jean lashing out if she felt crowded in on, "Why don't you take Jean upstairs so she can lie down and rest? We're not going anywhere."

Murdock nodded slowly, "Yeah, sure, Colonel…" he took a step back and pulled Jean along with him, "Come on, Saint." Slowly he managed to get her to follow him out of the living room and out to the front hall.

Getting Jean to follow him up the stairs was like trying to work the strings on a life sized marionette puppet, but with a little effort Murdock managed to get her to the top of the stairs and they rounded the corner to Decker's bedroom. Jean clung to Murdock and continued to cry hysterically and exhaustively; Murdock held her in his arms and let her wear herself out, but she proved to have more endurance for this than he gave her credit for. It reached a point he knew he had to stop her if she was going to get any rest, so, keeping one arm around her, he reached into the pocket on his jacket and took out a bottle of knockout pills Hannibal had gotten for B.A.'s milk. Twisting the cap off with two fingers, he managed to shake out two pills and as gently as he could, shoved them past her lips and into her mouth and forced her to swallow them, promising her that she would feel better soon, Jean didn't protest.

It took a few minutes for the pills to work, but once they did, Jean had zero strength left and so it was very easy for Murdock to push her down onto the bed, which had been left unmade from the night before. She straightened herself out so she was laid straight with her arms high over her head and her feet together. Murdock went around to the foot over the bed and reaching over the footboard, grabbed one foot and untied her shoe, making small talk about her feet needing to breathe like the rest of her skin. When he got both shoes off of her, he grabbed the top sheet that was discarded at the bottom and pulled it up and draped it over Jean and tucked her in as she was already on her way to the blissful world of unconsciousness.

Murdock stood over Jean and watched her for a few minutes, and when he was sure that she was asleep, and wouldn't be getting up anytime soon, he went over to the other side of the bed and climbed in beside her. Even though Jean was unaware of his presence, and even if she didn't want his company right now, he needed the close contact with another person, and she was it, even if she was so doped up out of her mind that she didn't have any idea where she was or what was going on, he needed to be with her, needed to feel that warm breath on his skin, needed to hear that heartbeat in her chest. This had been a trying day for all of them; facing death never got any easier, and having to face someone else's and know you couldn't do anything about it was even worse, regardless of who and what they were. That was why he was always so glad that when they went out on a mission, luck was on their side and they might all get banged and bruised up, but once they were on the job, nobody ever got killed; it made him feel proud to be part of a Team that could accomplish so much good, but for all those times, there were always times like this when it didn't seem to matter.

Nothing ever made man realize his vulnerability like death; and after seeing death, man's only retreat was to surround himself with life and the appreciation of the wonders of life. That was exactly how Murdock felt right now. He cupped his hands on the sides of Jean's head and kissed her on her forehead and quietly spoke to her, as he finally started to feel the burn of tears building up in his own eyes. Like the others, he'd seen his share of dead bodies back in Vietnam, enough that his reactions to them now and the horrible ways they died could be delayed and held off for as long as was necessary; he had reached his own limit of how long he could hold off the inevitable. He put his arms around his wife and held her unconscious body close to him as he cried himself to sleep.


Hannibal didn't know what had woken him up but he sat up with a start and after a minute he started to remember where he was. He ran his hand over his face and realized that his cheek was wet; he wiped away his own tears as he tried to shut out from his mind, that sight, that noise, that smell of burning flesh, an odor you never forgot and you never got used to, no matter how many times you encountered it over the years. He pulled himself up into a normal sitting position as opposed to how he had fallen asleep with one leg draped over the arm of the couch to compensate for Face taking up the other two thirds of the cushions, and even he'd had to tuck his knees in to fit as he'd fallen asleep earlier.

Hannibal looked at his watch: 2:30 in the afternoon, but for the life of him he couldn't even remember what day this was. He didn't know when he'd fallen asleep, he didn't remember if Face and B.A. had been asleep already or not, his mind was so clouded he could hardly remember anything.

His attention was drawn to a noise he was able to hear through the closed windows, a car door slamming. Ah ha, so Decker was back.

"Face, B.A.," he shook the other men, "Get up."

"W…what is it, Hannibal?" Face asked as he slowly came around.

"We've got company," he told them, "Decker's here."

"So?" B.A. yawned, "Ain't this the man's house?"

"That's not what I mean," Hannibal said.

Face stood up alongside Hannibal as they heard the front door open, and a few seconds later they saw Decker come in, and he froze when he saw them.

"Well, what'd you find out?" Hannibal asked.

"You've got a lot of nerve coming back here, Smith," Decker told him.

"I know," he replied coyly, "Just one of those little personality defects I can't seem to do anything about."

Decker looked around the room and realized they were two people short, "Where're Murdock and that woman?"

"Upstairs," Hannibal answered, and just as Decker spun on his heel he added, "And I'm giving you advanced warning, Decker."

That stopped him, he turned back to Hannibal and asked, "Warning about what?"

Hannibal took a cigar out of his pocket and bit down on it, "They're asleep, and if you go up there and wake that girl up before she's ready, I'm going to shoot you." There was much gravity in his tone as he added, "She's a very sick woman."

Decker snorted and replied, "You just figure that out?"

"Quite the opposite," Hannibal told him, "I've known since the beginning. From the first time we saw that kid, she's always been about two steps away from the edge of her sanity, because of situations like this. This isn't a first for her either, Decker, but there's more to risk with her losing her mind than any of us." He replayed the early morning's events and shook his head, he could easily see this leading to Jean plummeting off that ledge entirely. They'd had 10 years to get accommodated to Murdock's insane act and for the most part it took very little work; the man was harmless at best and at his worst he could only become annoying, he never got violent as a result of the trauma he'd endured, but Jean…Hannibal didn't want to think about that one. He turned back to Decker and repeated, "What did you find out?"

Decker looked like he had a migraine that could kill an elephant, and after the day he'd had he probably did. "They salvaged what was left of the car to check it…they found something on the bottom, as strong as the explosion was the shell of the bomb remained almost entirely intact."

"Talk about your stiff competition," Face said, "Exactly how are we going to find the people responsible for that one?"

"We'll have to figure that one out after we take out this phony Decker," Hannibal told him.

"So now what?" Face asked.

"Everything has been shut down," Decker told them, "What was left of the money and the heroin in the other two cars has been confiscated and all the drivers were taken into custody, I sure as hell hope you were able to get something out of them before because we're sure as hell not going to have any access to them now."

Hannibal smirked and commented, "Kind of sucks being down in the middle rung of the totem pole, eh, Decker? Welcome to our world."

"Well," Face interjected, "We were able to get a location out of those nitwits before the Generals showed up." He took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and said, "Apparently the guy who's passing himself off as you is operating things on his end out near the state line."

"And since he has to be finding out soon about the large hole blown into his plan," Hannibal said, "The sooner we can find him before he has a chance to destroy everything and clear out, the better."

"That mean we're flying, Colonel?" they heard Murdock ask.

They went to the hall and saw Murdock coming down the stairs hand in hand with Jean, who still looked out of it and was appearing to have some difficulty telling just how far apart the stairs were as she stepped down.

"It would get us there the quickest," Hannibal agreed.

"Hey Hannibal, you know I ain't flying," B.A. told him.

"Who said anything about you?" Face asked, "We can go on ahead and beat him to the punch, and you can follow in the van, that way you can keep an eye out for any additional traffic making its trek across the state."

"You're not going to get that helicopter back," Decker told them.

"They're not getting a helicopter, Decker," Jean replied cynically, "They built a helicopter, they've been waiting around this place for two hours for you to get back so they just built a helicopter while they were waiting."

"Very funny," he sneered in response.

"Well you know we could do it," Hannibal said, "However we're pressed for time so we'll have to settle for one that's already put together."

"That's fine," Face said, "There are other means to get a chopper, and I know most of them."

"And I'll go with Murdock," Jean added, "Might come in handy to have two pilots available."

Decker snorted and remarked, "If you're at the controls, you're all going to die, so I suggest you go right on ahead with that plan."

"Oh yeah?" Jean got in his face, "I'll do that, Decker, and I'll have you strapped in right alongside me for when we all crash."

Decker appeared to stand as still as stone, nobody saw him draw his hand back, only saw as he backhanded Jean across the face as hard as he could. She fell back but quickly regained her balance and she lunged at Decker, now it was his turn to fail to see how fast she moved; he didn't know he'd even been hit until he felt his head get knocked back against the wall and he felt her hands gripping his throat.

"Jean, get off of him!" Hannibal ordered as he grabbed her by the shoulders. But her anger gave her more strength than he had at the moment, so B.A. helped him pull her off. "Get off of him, Jean!" he commanded as, between the two of them they managed to jerk her back and break her grip on Decker's throat.

Jean was on the verge of hyperventilating as she found herself lifted off the ground and locked in B.A.'s iron grip; her arms were outstretched and she was still reaching for Decker, who upon regaining his ability to breathe, backed up along the wall to put distance between the two of them. B.A. put Jean down and she told Hannibal, "This guy's had it in for me because I've been in this with you guys and made him look like the jackass that he is over the last few months. He'd just love to see me pushing up daisies if he had the chance."

"That might be," Hannibal told her, "But we're dealing with something far bigger than any of us put together, and if we're going to stop it then we have to stop fighting with each other first. Our own petty differences are going to have to wait until another time."

Jean looked put out by this announcement but she grumbled out a reluctant agreement to go along with it.

"Now, we'll get a chopper, Face, you, Jean and Murdock take it, B.A. and I'll follow in the van, and Decker and Crane will follow us."

"Are you insane, Smith?" Decker asked him.

"No," Hannibal answered, "That's Murdock's racket."

"And I do it very well, see?" Murdock asked with a hint of Edward G. Robinson in his voice.

"Alright everybody," Hannibal told them as he pointed to the door, "Let's move out."


"Face, I think that guy you got the location from took you for a sucker," Jean said as they looked down at their final destination from their bird's eye view in the chopper, "There's nothing around here, just miles and miles of desert."

"Funny," Face commented, "I'd think given the gravity of the situation in that four of his partners had just been blown into charred barbecue, that he would've been straight with us."

"Yeah well, shows what you get for thinking, don't it?" she replied.

"Children, children, please," Murdock said in a nasal tone, "Now we have to be near the place," he was flying low enough that he could show them, "Look at all those tire tracks in the dirt down there."

"It means somebody's been out here," Jean agreed, "Not necessarily the people we're looking for."

"No, but I'm sure by following that, we should find the final destination either way," Murdock told her.

"Some destination, I don't see anything up ahead," Jean noted, "I hope Hannibal and B.A. are having better luck finding something on the ground."

"If they do, we ought to hear about it soon," Face said.

"I still don't like it," Jean told Murdock, "Us working with Decker," she shook her head, "It's too easy for something to go wrong."

"That's why Hannibal's loving every minute of this, you can be sure," Face remarked.

"I see something!" Murdock pointed down below.

They tried to see what he saw and they about missed it completely.

"Looks like a shack," Jean said.

"Well somebody must be using it for something," Face said as he peered out the window, "Because I'm seeing about 20 cars and trucks parked around the place."

"Well it's all we've found so far," Murdock got on the radio and gave Hannibal their current location as best as he could, and they waited for a response from the men on the ground.

"Alright, Murdock, we ought to be there soon, how much ground can you cover in 15 minutes?"

"Is that a challenge, Colonel?" Murdock asked.

"No."

"Oh…about 35 miles."

"Never mind," Hannibal replied, "Check past it about ten miles to make sure you haven't missed anything, and then double back around, it doesn't sound like you've got anything to cover your landing so you'll just have to announce your arrival."

"Well you know what they say," Jean said once she took the radio from Murdock and glanced down at the scenery below, "When you want to make your point, say it with bullets."

"Right," Hannibal said.

"You got it, Colonel."

Jean was looking through the windshield down at the ground below, and not seeing anything worth noticing, when she heard a strange sound coming from somewhere in the cockpit. Face heard it too and they both looked to Murdock, it sounded like he'd smuggled a small radio onboard with them and had turned it on, but they realized that the static sounds were coming from the pilot's own throat, replaced shortly afterwards with him humming something from the Rolling Stones and bobbing his head in time with the song. Jean turned and glanced over at Face, as if he might have the answer, and he just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders in response.

"Murdock," she said, her voice raised to be heard over his humming. It worked and he turned and looked at her curiously and she asked him, "You okay?"

"Sure," he answered without a beat, "Hey Saint, do you know the words to 'Paint it Black'?"

Her eyes widened and for some reason she avoided answering it directly, responding only with, "I know 'Mother's Little Helper'."

"Oh that'll do," he replied.

Face didn't say anything and just scratched his head and thought back; Murdock had always been a big music person and sometimes he got stuck in certain phases that could last a day, or a week, maybe a month, and in the process manage to drive one or more of all of them nuts in the meantime. And there was one such period where he got hung up on the Rolling Stones, where every time they got a plane scammed, right after takeoff he'd start singing something or other until everybody else on the plane was ready to be knocked out like B.A. just to get away from it. For some reason Murdock found it calming to sing while flying, but ironically it had the opposite effect on his passengers. And then one day he'd just stopped it, moved onto something else and forgotten about the Rolling Stones entirely, from that day to this he hadn't heard one note of their music from the pilot's lips, and now it seemed to be starting again. He tried to figure out what it meant and he was coming up empty.

Another thought hit Face, it wasn't just while Murdock flew that he sang, it had also been numerous times when he went into the V.A. to spring him; and he couldn't count how many times he'd walked into Murdock's room to find him at one of his arcade games with his Walkman on half singing half screaming the Stones. He never was able to figure out what the connection was or even if there was one or if it was just Murdock's latest fascination/borderline obsession. They were all usually short lived so he never gave it much thought, but on the other hand they never came back either. Once Murdock was done with something he was done. Well, it could just be coincidence he decided, it had been a long time since they'd had to put up with Howling Mad's rendition of Mick Jagger. But he didn't know, there was something about it that didn't set well with him, and he tried to figure out why this was.

And he remembered finally. Back when Hannibal was in the hospital and they were going stir crazy in his room, Murdock had suggested making ink blots to keep themselves entertained. Murdock usually had nothing to do with ink blots after all the tests he was forced to take, but making his own, that was something else; but again it had only been at the V.A., he never did it when he was out on leave with the others, so why now? Murdock had been out of the V.A., officially, permanently discharged, for about three months now, surely he couldn't be…no, that couldn't be it. Over the past 10 years there had been much debate over whether Murdock was really crazy, and none of them had been too definite one way or the other. For the most part, Face believed what they all seemed to believe, that most of it was just an act, sure on one hand it had been a good cover for Murdock to keep him safe, but on the other hand it had taken him almost no time at all to wrap the whole staff around his finger and use his crazy act to get anything he wanted on top of the free room and board. But why was he acting now like he was back at the V.A.? That was the part that didn't make any sense to him.

"Here they come!" Murdock broke off in mid-song when he saw the van driving up down below.

"Well, here goes nothing," Jean said as she picked up the rifle at her side.

Murdock got them landed to coincide perfectly with the van and Decker's car pulling up outside the shack, which now that they were on the ground they were able to see was a bar of about regular size, apparently open for business, despite the fact that it looked ready to cave in.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Jean asked Face.

"Only one way to find out," he answered.

"Wait a minute," Hannibal told them, "You leave your guns out here, you go in first and if it looks like trouble, then we'll come in. There is a chance that somebody's pulling our legs and it's a legit business, and if that's the case we don't want to start any unnecessary trouble."

"Maybe but seeing as how there's nobody else to be found within 20 miles of this place," Jean said, "I doubt it."

"Well let's go check it out," Murdock told her.

Face looked to Hannibal and said before he followed them, "Hannibal, if anything happens to me in there, I swear I'm going to come back from the grave and haunt you for the rest of your life."

Hannibal just smirked in response and said, "Good to know, Face, now get going."

Face grumbled but he followed Murdock and Jean inside. Their eyes were looking every which way for any sign that something was amiss but on the surface everything looked normal. The place was badly lit, there was awful music coming from a jukebox in the corner, the air was filled with smoke from people's cigarettes and there were about 30 people drinking and talking and drunkenly laughing.

"What do you think?" Face murmured to Murdock.

"If anybody's here that we want," he answered, "They're probably in the back."

"I'll take a look," Jean said, "If anything goes wrong, you'll know. You guys keep an eye on the door, make sure nobody's blocking our exit."

She disappeared down a narrow corridor and Murdock watched it to make sure nobody blocked her exit either, while Face kept an eye on their own present company. Nobody seemed out of place, just a bunch of half lit barflies who were completely oblivious to the newcomers.

"I hate to think that we got taken for a ride on this one," he murmured to Murdock.

"We ought to find out soon enough," Murdock responded.

"Something's got to be going on around here," Face said, "Why else would people drive all the way out here just to get the same cheap booze and listen to the same awful music you can get anywhere else?"

He felt a draft behind him and turned and saw it was caused by a blonde woman in a red sparkle dress walking past him. She smiled at him and he was starting to get an idea why they would make the trip, if she was any indicator of the services around there.

"I think you just answered your own question, muchacho," Murdock said.

Face was about to follow the woman and strike up a generic small talk conversation that he was accustomed to using with everybody he worked his con charm magic on, when Jean returned from the back and she shook her head, "Didn't see anyone back there."

"See anything?" Murdock asked.

"Well the manager's office is back there but it's locked," she said, and she stopped, and froze.

"What's wrong?" Face asked.

Jean didn't answer and just dug her hand and more specifically her nails into Murdock's thigh; he managed not to scream but he had his teeth gritted and was growling like a cat about to claw another one's eyes out. He grabbed her hand and pried it off his leg and asked her, "What's the matter?"

"Oh my God," Jean said slowly, as if in shock, and she pointed, "It's her!"

"Who?" Face asked.

Jean pointed to the woman in the red dress at the bar and said, "That's the power hungry bimbo from the cabin that tried to kill me."

"Are you sure?" Face asked her.

"I told you I'd know her anywhere," she said, and took a step towards the bar.

Murdock grabbed her by the back of her shirt and yanked her back and asked her, "What're you going to do?"

Jean managed a straight face as she replied innocently, "I'm gonna go over and have a little fun."

They both grabbed her and pulled her back before she had a chance to do anything.

"If she's here," Face said, "Then the others might not be too far off."

"Well that's fine," Jean told him, "You can call Hannibal in if you want, but I know that none of you are going to clean her clock so I'm going to take care of that job myself."

"Jean!" Murdock called after her as she hotfooted it over to the bar.

Face ran over to the front door and called out, "Hannibal you better get in here, I have an idea it's about to get ugly."

And he was right. When he turned back around he saw six big goons come out from the back, presumably from the locked office Jean hadn't been able to get into. Two of the men had guns and the others just looked like they were going to rely on whatever objects were on hand to pulverize them.

The front door was busted in and B.A. jumped in with a gun in hand and said automatically, "Freeze, suckers!"

Hannibal had managed to slip in behind B.A. without being seen and showed himself to their guests as well; Decker and Crane also walked in with guns drawn, as if they were just daring somebody to make a wrong move. However the warning went unheeded, one of the men in the bar opened fire and everybody ducked for cover. His aim was off though and so he only succeeded at aerating the wall behind them, though a few shots came close to hitting them. It became obvious that there were too many innocent bystanders in the way so B.A. and Hannibal dropped their guns and jumped into an all-out brawl with the other men.

Murdock kicked his foot under a chair and knocked it back, he grabbed it by the back and swung it over his head and broke it over the head of the man nearest him. Face punched another man in the jaw and sent him falling back over one of the tables. By this time a lot of the barflies had joined in the fight, and it seemed not because they were drunk and willing to go along with anything, but because a lot of them were very familiar with the six muscle men who were getting their brains knocked out and sided with them. Crane saw one man bending over for a gun that was dropped on the floor and he kicked the man in the face and knocked him back; Decker grabbed another bar patron who had pulled out a switchblade and put him in the sleeper hold.

One man got a lucky shot in with Hannibal and knocked him against the wall; Hannibal could taste the blood in his mouth and it made him develop a little mean streak. He took out his lighter and set the sleeve on the man's jacket on fire, the man scrambled and threw his jacket on the bar counter, and it gave Jean an idea. She jumped behind the bar and started grabbing bottles off the shelf, quickly glancing at the labels, and picking the highest proof pieces she could find, broke the tops off the bottles and tossed them onto the jacket, creating a conflagration tall enough the flames practically touched the ceiling.

B.A. had managed to take out nearly a dozen men and left them on the floor stacked against one another like a row of dominoes; but no matter how many people anybody was able to knock down, there seemed to be three more to take their places everywhere they turned. Even now with the fire growing larger by the second and threatening to consume all of them, few people had actually shown the brains to leave the bar or even attempt to, and it looked like the fight would continue until they were all burnt to a crisp.

Jean turned and saw a man in uniform and for a brief second thought that Decker had taken this opportunity to resume his old ways and take up a fight with the members of the A-Team; then she realized the man about to beat Face's brains out wasn't Decker and she lunged at him, grabbed him by the arm and jerked him back and off balance, causing the man to fall back against the rack of bottles on the wall. Jean upped the ante by grabbing the man by the lapels of his jacket and shoving him into the menagerie of wine, his head making an audible CRACK as it made contact with some of the bottles. She heard somebody yell to watch out and she turned around and saw another man in uniform swinging at her; she ducked the blow and jumped up, grabbed a handful of the man's curly hair, with the other hand grabbed him by the jacket and rammed him against the wall. Then another idea came to her and she grabbed one bottle off the wall that was still intact. It was a cheap champagne, she twisted the top off and poured as much of it into her mouth as she could store without swallowing. Then she went over to the nearest man who was giving their side trouble and she spat the champagne into his eyes. Blinding him for a second gave Face the chance to KO the man.

Murdock had found a fire extinguisher behind the bar and first used it to put out part of the fire since it was obvious nobody was smart enough to flee from the flames, and then he got another idea and used it to spray the people they were fighting with. The sudden blast of cold took them by surprise and made it easier to knock them out while their guards were down. Then he hoisted the extinguisher over his head and used it to brain another man with. He leapfrogged over that man and punched another in the face, unable to resist asking the poor sap, since he was in a mood, "How did the old ladies turn into Russians?"

Jean came up beside him and reached over towards his waist and said, "Excuse me, Murdock, I need to borrow this for a minute," and grabbed his belt.

Murdock got jerked to the side when she pulled on it but in one quick move she had it unbuckled and jerked out of the loops; he looked to see what she was doing and saw her rush head-on into a scuffle with three other guys. She had the belt slung over her shoulder like a bullwhip and when one man moved in close enough, she swung it, with both ends still in her hand, slipped the loop of the belt around the man's neck, and with hands quicker than the eye, slipped the end of the belt in through its buckle and pulled, constraining it against the man's neck. The man's eyes bulged out and his hands grabbed at the belt and tried to loosen it. Jean just smirked sinisterly at him and said, "Get away from me, boy, you bother me." And she lifted her foot up, planted it against the man's stomach, and with one good jerk, undid the belt and sent him falling back, and he fell against Decker and both men were knocked down.

"This is getting to be fun," Jean smirked.

"Well don't get used to it," Hannibal told her, "We're getting out of here." Through the window he could see blue and red lights starting to come their way.

"No wait, not yet," Jean broke away from him and went over to the woman, who during all this time had been watching amusedly from one of the safer corners of the bar.

Jean tapped the woman on the shoulder and when she turned around, Jean punched her in the face, and when the woman stumbled back, Jean grabbed a handful of the red material of the dress and ripped it clear off. The right side of the dress crumbled and fell halfway down the woman's stomach, exposing the white slip she wore underneath.

"Now that's how you do that," Jean told the woman as she drop kicked her.

The woman let out a yelp of pain as she hit the floor, and was outright screaming when Jean grabbed her arm and twisted it to dislocate it. All of a sudden Jean felt something grabbing her and pulling her back, and realized it was Hannibal.

"That's enough, kid!" Hannibal told her as he jerked her back, "Let's go."

Murdock came over to them and he told Hannibal, "You guys take Decker's car, they won't stop it, we'll get the van and we'll follow."

There wasn't any time to ask if Murdock was sure about his idea, the men exited through a side door B.A. made by tossing a table through the window and kicking out the piece of wall beneath it. It was a tight squeeze but the five men managed to fit in the car and get the hell out of there just as the police cars pulled up. Face craned his neck around to see through the back window what he couldn't through the side or rear view mirrors, the van was following behind and looked like it could catch up with them soon.

"They got out!" he said with a big sigh of relief.

"Good," Hannibal replied.

"So now what do we do, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

Static came through on the car radio and they heard Murdock suggest, "How about if we get out of Dodge and into a place for lunch? I'm hungry."

"Sounds like a good idea, Murdock," Hannibal replied, "Follow us."


Half an hour later, Hannibal figured they'd gotten far enough away that they didn't have to worry about the authorities catching up with them and they pulled up outside of a small diner, Murdock pulled the van up behind the car and everybody piled out. As they joined up again to make sure everybody was alright, Face looked over at Murdock and noticed that there was something different about the man, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. And then a moment later it hit him what was different about Murdock, and he slapped his forehead for not figuring it out immediately. He reached over and poked Hannibal repeatedly in the shoulder to get the Colonel's attention, and it worked, and in the process managed to annoy him.

"What is it, Face?" he wanted to know.

Face pointed over to Murdock and asked Hannibal, "Do you see what I see?"

Hannibal looked, and he didn't say anything but Face did notice the colonel's eyes become enlarged when he saw it too.

Murdock casually walked alongside Jean, making small talk with her as they headed for the diner, and slung over his left shoulder, clutched in his hand was a brown leather purse.

"Uh…Murdock," Hannibal spoke up as he caught up with the captain, "Murdock…"

"Yeah, Hannibal?" Murdock turned around to see the colonel, letting go of the purse and instead holding onto the strap up by his shoulder.

"Uh…" Hannibal tried to think how to approach this one, "Murdock, has something happened that we ought to know about?"

Murdock looked at both men curiously and said, "I don't think so, why?"

Face couldn't take it anymore and he spat out, "Why're you carrying a woman's purse?" Then the next question hit him, "Where did you get it?" he pointed to Jean and said, "You didn't have one with you, did you?"

"Hell no, you know I don't have a purse," Jean told him, but he noted she didn't sound surprised at Murdock's lugging it around.

"Well then?" Hannibal asked.

"It's hers," Jean said, "The reason we didn't get out when you did is I went back to the office, figuring since the door was left open I could find something of use to us…her purse was on the floor by the desk, I grabbed it up and a few files that were left out on the desk and sticking out of the filing cabinet. I figured if nothing else I can find out who in the hell that woman is so we have something to go on."

"And did you?" Hannibal asked.

"Well…a lot of the papers are Greek to me, I figured maybe Face could find out what they mean."

"Do I look Greek?" he asked teasingly.

"You're about two steps away from looking like a lawn jockey," Jean told him, "That's beside the point. Anyway, I did find her driver's license in the bottom…her name is Jocelyn Watkins, assuming that's her real name. There wasn't anything in there to suggest that she's ever spent one day enlisted in anything related to the military, so we were both right, she's not only an amateur, she's an imposter as well."

Face took the files from her and glanced over them and said, "After we eat I'll see if anything here comes out as English."

"Sounds like a plan," Hannibal remarked.


What Face found was that somebody had been keeping a close eye on the competition; all the files that Jean had taken out of the office were on men from the Air Force who according to the current records he was glancing over, had been marked for death and some had already been carried out.

"It's just like any old drug war," he said, "Each side trying to kill as many members of the other side before somebody can get them first."

"And the beat goes on," Murdock said.

"Maybe it's just me," Face said to the others, "But you'd think with the army being involved that you could expect something a little different."

"Why should it start now?" Jean replied, and turned to glare at Decker as she said, "They're very good at what they do which is nothing good for anybody but themselves."

"Keep it up, Rhodes," Decker said to her warningly, "And I'm going to forget my position and lay you out."

"Go ahead and try, Decker," she replied, "I have no position, and I'll do you quicker than you could me." She squinted her eyes and showed her teeth in a shark smile as she said, "Do you think because you wear a uniform that I have any respect for you? I belong to no group, no branch of anything, I owe my loyalty to no one, especially not some pile of sludge just because he's got his stripes."

She was close enough to Decker that she swore she could hear him growling, and she saw his hands start to clench up like he was about to strangle her. Crane cleared his throat and it seemed to knock some sense into Decker and he rested his arms at his sides and backed away from her. Hannibal had taken the liberty to bring the other captain up to date on what had happened, including Decker's little run in with the raw fury that had come out of Jean when Decker hit her. Crane swore he wasn't here as Decker's second in command, more often than not he was merely along for the ride as the colonel's babysitter to keep him from getting his head too far in the lion's mouth. He'd had his own brush with death with this woman, he didn't know for fact that she had the killer instinct, but he didn't believe in pressing his luck. It seemed to him that they'd already pressed it clear through the wall with their current situation of actually working on the same side as the A-Team, hell must've frozen over after all.

"So what're we going to do now, Hannibal?" Face asked.

Hannibal looked over the papers and scratched his head while he thought about it. "I don't know who started this whole mess, or when, or why…it's obvious that each side has much to answer for but I don't like the idea of anymore of this hit list being carried out, so we've got to find a way to reach some of these guys while they're still alive. After that explosion today, I'm not too eager to see what the army's retaliation's going to be."

Murdock went over to Hannibal and said, "If we can find them, maybe it would be a good idea if I went in and talked to them, after all it's Air Force, it's more my people than yours, Colonel."

Hannibal considered the thought but it was obvious he wasn't too hot on the idea. "The only thing you have in common with these people, Murdock, is that you all fly."

Murdock shrugged and replied, "Maybe that's all we need…what if…" he snapped his fingers and said, "I've got it, I've got it, Hannibal."

"Well we're all ears," Face said, "What is it?"

"We find out where these guys are currently stationed, we get a tap on their line, we find out who's who and what's what and where it all is, and I come in as a new guy, just transferred in."

"It might work, but I don't know, Murdock," Face told him, "You could be walking in there handing them your head on a platter."

"What if somebody went in with him?" Jean asked, "That would improve his odds of getting out alive, wouldn't it?"

"Who?" Face asked.

"Who? Me!" Jean pointed at herself, "I'm the only other person in this whole lot of knuckleheads who knows anything about flying, and we wouldn't have to keep the cover up for long."

"That would never work," Face told her.

"Oh I don't know," Hannibal replied, "After all, we already know she can fool Decker, and he'd already seen her…it might work. In any case we'd only need them to buy a few minutes at best, we'd be right behind them the whole way."

"Them too?" Jean pointed at Crane and Decker.

"Yes," Hannibal answered.

"That's it," she told Murdock, "It's a bad idea, abort immediately."

Hannibal chuckled but he could hardly be heard over the wind picking up and the sound of the files in his hand flipping back and forth rapidly in the breeze. Face looked up and realized that the sky had suddenly turned dark, and he felt a chill as the wind suddenly became cold. Hannibal turned to him and asked, "Did you check the weather forecast for today?"

"No," Face answered.

Murdock looked up at the black clouds that were quickly filling the sky as if trying to see the answer in them. Hannibal shook his head and said, "If that's going to do what I think it's going to do, nobody's going to be flying in that. I think we bought ourselves a little time."

"I don't know," Face told Hannibal as a particularly strong gust of wind blew through him and chilled him clear through, "If that wind gets any stronger it'll take the lines down, you can forget about a tap."

"Then we've all bought ourselves a stay of execution," Jean said, "The question is what do we do now?"

Face noticed Hannibal was staring at him intently, but he knew better than to ask what Hannibal was thinking because Hannibal asked him without any prompting, "Well Lieutenant, think you can get us two hotel rooms for seven people?"

"What?" the others asked.

"Aw Hannibal," B.A. said with a shake of his head, the first thing that he'd said in several hours, and what he lacked in quantity of conversation he made up for in cutting straight to the point, "What' going through your crazy mind now?"